


Talking Body

by rolly_poly (prevaricator)



Series: Packed 'verse [2]
Category: EXO (Band), SHINee
Genre: Alpha/Beta, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:38:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6180448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prevaricator/pseuds/rolly_poly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jongin has a lot of sex and an identity crisis, and then he runs into a friend he hasn't seen in years. More sex and identity crises ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talking Body

**Author's Note:**

> This story happens about two years after the events of [Guard Dog](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5398853), but you don't need to have read that to understand what's going on here. 
> 
> For clarity, in this werewolf pack 'mating' typically means that a couple has chosen to spend their lives with each other, but it doesn't necessarily mean they stop having sex outside of the relationship. The standard for this pack is close to what most people would consider an open relationship, where the mates are primary partners and don't have the same connection with their other sex partners that they have with their mate. There's plenty of murky ground, though, and Jongin's pack is also not very good at following its own rules.
> 
> The relationship tags only indicate who has explicit sex in this; there are simply too many pairings for me to note them all. TaeKai is the endgame.

The forest is calm today.

That is, as far as Jongin is concerned, a good thing. Curled up on a tree limb, listening to the cheerful chatter of birds and rustling leaves and the wonderful sound of nobody talking anywhere near him, the only thing keeping the situation from being perfect is that he’s on sentry duty, which means he can’t nap. It’s a small price to pay for what is basically officially sanctioned quiet time for Jongin.

Many of the other wolves loathe the monotony of sentry duty, but it’s a welcome escape for Jongin. His enthusiasm for the task is a large part of why Junmyeon allows him to do it; there’s a perceived risk that a beta on sentry duty might choose to submit to an invading alpha rather than defend his pack, but Junmyeon reasons that a willing Jongin is more likely to notice a problem than a reluctant, bored alpha. The decision to include him had been helped along by Yixing, who had pointed out that Jongin lacks the common alpha desire to be a hero and is therefore more likely to do the logical thing and seek reinforcements when he spots an intruder than attempt to handle the situation himself.

So it is that Jongin gets to spend much of his time alone, something he’s come to appreciate more and more as his friends have come of age and started to pursue mates in earnest. If he’d thought the endless chatter about crushes was annoying as a teenager, it had nothing on the well-meaning attempts of friends with potential mates to find Jongin one of his own.

And so it is that Jongin is extraordinarily perturbed when the calm of the forest is interrupted by the sound of a couple of wolves crashing through the underbrush toward him. They’re approaching from the direction of the camp, so Jongin tenses more out of irritation than concern, and the irritation only doubles when it’s Sehun who tumbles out of the underbrush to the base of Jongin’s tree.

“Sehun, you’re not supposed to distract a sentry on duty,” Jongin admonishes.

Shifting to human form, Sehun rolls his eyes up at Jongin and points into the underbrush. “I brought your replacement, but he tripped on a tree root.”

A glace skyward confirms that it is, in fact, time for the guard to change. Jongin had assumed that the second wolf was Zitao when the first turned out to be Sehun, but it must be Chanyeol. 

“Did he hurt himself?” Jongin asks lightly. It’s sort of a miracle that Chanyeol has managed to live to adulthood without permanently maiming himself in some manner, but he has.

“I’m fine,” Chanyeol says, limping out of the bushes. “Thank you for your concern.”

The last comment is sarcastic, in response to Jongin’s own sarcasm.

Sehun hardly waits for Jongin’s feet to reach the ground before he’s back at his current favorite game. “Lu Han.”

“No,” Jongin says, even before Sehun finishes the name. Stomping back toward the camp, he shifts into wolf form and takes off at a run before Sehun can come up with another potential mate for Jongin. The silence will only last until they’re back at the camp, but Jongin will take any he can get.

“No because he’s an omega? Do you not like omegas?” Sehun asks as soon as they’re on human feet again. “Or do you just not like him?”

“Just no,” Jongin says. It has nothing to do with omegas or alphas or anything. Jongin’s not really sure which he prefers, if anything, and the whole thing is pointless. He’s not going to suddenly fall in love with someone just because Sehun has found romance and decided that all of his friends should have it, too. 

“Jongiiiiin,” Sehun whines. “How am I supposed to help you if you won’t tell me what you’re looking for?”

“I’m not looking for anything!” Jongin says. It’s a half-truth, but telling Sehun the whole truth would only lead to more unwelcome efforts on Sehun’s part to fix Jongin’s problems. “Maybe betas aren’t supposed to mate. Have you ever thought of that?”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s why you and Yixing are competing to see who can sleep with the entire pack first.”

Jongin rolls his eyes, because he’s not sure what sex really has to do with falling in love, but he’s not confident that he could explain his thoughts on the subject to Sehun. 

“Speaking of Yixing, I promised I’d help him with something when I got off sentry duty,” Jongin segues desperately. “So I’ve gotta go. Sorry.”

“Help him with what?” Sehun asks. “His perpetual hard-on?” 

“Ha, ha,” Jongin rolls his eyes. 

“You two should mate with each other,” Sehun says. “Make life easier for the rest of us.”

It’s a suggestion Sehun makes at least once a month, so Jongin feels no compunction about simply refusing to respond. He sets off in the direction of the tent Yixing uses for his daytime work, ducking off in the direction of Chanyeol’s tent instead as soon as he’s out of Sehun’s sight.

Chanyeol’s tent smells a little like furs in need of airing out, under the overwhelming alpha scent of Chanyeol, but it’s a small price to pay for the chance to nap uninterrupted for a few hours while Chanyeol is out. With a contented sigh, Jongin ditches his clothes, sprawls on Chanyeol’s furs and dozes off, not bothering to cover himself. It’s a warm day.

 

When he wakes to Chanyeol opening the tent, the sun is almost completely gone. He’s missed dinner, then.

"Hey, you look familiar. Have we had sex before?" Chanyeol asks, his deep voice making the terrible line even sleazier. Jongin throws a pillow at him and fist pumps when it smacks Chanyeol in the face. 

"Hey," Chanyeol pouts, crawling in to flop next to Jongin. 

Feeling bad for greeting his host with violence, when Chanyeol really is gracious for letting Jongin invade the privacy of his tent unannounced, Jongin curls a hand in Chanyeol's hair and pulls him down for a sleepy apology kiss. 

As with most things Chanyeol does, the kiss turns overeager as soon as he responds, but Jongin doesn't really mind letting Chanyeol eat his face. The benefits outweigh the downsides with Chanyeol. 

A large hand curls around Jongin's lower back and pulls his naked body flush against Chanyeol's, and that's one of the benefits. Fingers trailing down to dig into the flesh of Jongin's ass, Chanyeol pulls back to ask, "Are you just here to hide from people, or was it me you were looking for?"

"Mostly the first," Jongin admits, tugging Chanyeol's head back down when he starts to pull away. "But you're a nice..." 

He can't remember what word he was going for, so he opts to communicate with his body instead, pulling Chanyeol back for another kiss and hooking his arms up under Chanyeol's to cling to his back. 

"Bonus?" Chanyeol suggests, hitching Jongin's thighs around his waist and tracing hungry fingers along them. It takes a moment for Jongin to even connect that Chanyeol is finishing the sentence he’d dropped, and then he can’t be bothered with identifying a word to agree. Words are hard; sex is easy.

Sex with Chanyeol is particularly easy, because they’ve done it a lot. Chanyeol can be naïve and clueless still about Jongin’s beta status, even after years of friendship, but that naïveté has proven useful in bed, because Chanyeol isn’t self-conscious about asking what Jongin wants. 

And for all Chanyeol is uncoordinated and clumsy in most things, he’s very good with his fingers. Probably something to do with all the musical instruments he plays, Jongin reflects as Chanyeol works slicked fingers into him and wastes no time in finding his prostate. Jongin rocks back to meet them until he’s fucking himself on Chanyeol’s hand.

By the time he’s ready to go, Chanyeol is ready, too, but Jongin takes a moment to lick at his cock just because he likes the feel of it in his mouth. He wraps a hand around the base to jerk while he bobs his head over the tip, enjoying the stretch of his lips and Chanyeol’s fingers scrunching in his hair (though he realizes belatedly that one of those hands is slick, and his hair is going to be disgusting). 

Crawling up into Chanyeol’s lap, Jongin presses his lips against Chanyeol’s again before guiding his still-slick hand back around his cock. Chanyeol is watching him with hooded eyes, mouth half open, and Jongin can’t help but smirk because he knows how hot Chanyeol finds him like this. 

The stretch is always just shy of overwhelming when Jongin slides onto Chanyeol’s cock, and this time is no different. He moans, bracing his arms over Chanyeol’s shoulders for leverage as he rises up and falls back again, enjoying the feeling of Chanyeol’s large hands wrapping around his hips to guide him.

Sometimes Jongin wonders if Chanyeol lets his laziness win out over the alpha urge to assert dominance when he’s fucking omegas, or if it’s just Jongin (and maybe Yixing, though Jongin can’t remember if they’ve ever fucked) who gets him with so little posturing.

Grinding up to meet Jongin, Chanyeol moans and says. "Fuck, you're so good at this, Jonginnie." 

Jongin grunts and guides Chanyeol's hand down to his cock, bucking up into it as he continues to ride until he comes over Chanyeol's hand and his own stomach. 

Then Chanyeol's spilling him onto his back and thrusting roughly, one hand holding Jongin down by the hip and the other wrapped around his own cock over the knot, keeping it down for as long as he can before he has to pull out. Jongin's back on his hands and knees for Chanyeol as soon as he pulls out, wrapping his mouth around the head of his cock, hands working over his knot while Chanyeol groans something like, "Fuck, Jongin, that's filthy.”

Jongin backs off in time to catch Chanyeol's first orgasm in his hands instead of his mouth—choking on copious amounts of alpha come isn't really his idea of a good time—and wipes it off on the furs as he lies back down.

The second round is a lazy trade-off of familiar hand jobs and Chanyeol fingering Jongin to keep him happy while they wait for Chanyeol’s knot to recede.

“You can sleep here tonight,” Chanyeol responds to Jongin’s as-yet unasked question when they’ve finished. Normally he tells Jongin that he doesn’t need to ask, but he must have finally caught on that Jongin’s not going to stop asking.

They sprawl on the furs together, with Jongin’s face pressed to Chanyeol’s chest. As he listens to the rhythms of his friend’s breath and pulse slowing as sleep catches up with him, Jongin wonders how Sehun could fail to understand why Jongin has slept with so many members of the pack.

Because Sehun’s accusation that Jongin is trying to screw the whole pack is off base. Jongin does have a lot of sex, and he has it with a lot of people. But for Jongin, it’s got more to do with connecting with his friends than anything else. Jongin thrives on physical contact in the same way some people love conversation. He expresses himself better physically than with words, as well, so he displays his affection accordingly.

Most of his trysts start innocently enough, with Jongin napping on someone’s shoulder, or sprawled awkwardly across a lap, lulled to sleep by the steady cadence of the conversations around him. That it often leads to sex is unsurprising and not unwelcome to Jongin, but the sex is frequently more of a pleasant bonus to Jongin than the end goal.

Sehun claims it doesn’t make sense how everyone seems to want in Jongin’s pants, but Jongin has long since figured out that there’s a combination of curiosity about sex with betas, since there are only two of them in the pack, and the allure of Jongin’s perfect physique (he’s long past modesty on that point) that means that most of the pack members anywhere near Jongin’s age have thought about fucking him.

And besides, Sehun is hardly innocent in the matter of lusting after Jongin. He’s not at all Sehun’s idea of mate material, but Jongin has messed around with Sehun more than almost anyone else in the pack.

 

Some nights later, Jongin has a problem.

It starts at supper, when he takes his food over to where Chanyeol is sitting with Kyungsoo, Baekhyun and Jongdae. 

“You’ve got a bit of food,” Chanyeol is saying, reaching over to wipe a crumb off Kyungsoo’s cheek. “Right here.”

Altering his trajectory from the spot next to Chanyeol, Jongin skirts their fire to a spot by Jongdae where he’s less likely to be hit by Chanyeol’s flailing when Kyungsoo punches him. It’s only after he’s sat down on a bit of worn log with his plate in his lap that Jongin realizes the whole group has fallen silent.

He looks up to see Jongdae and Baekhyun staring slack-jawed at Kyungsoo, who’s looking at Chanyeol with a considering expression. In turn, Chanyeol is looking at Kyungsoo with much the same shocked expression as the one on Baekhyun and Jongdae’s faces, only with his hand guarding the shoulder facing Kyungsoo, where Kyungsoo would normally be punching him right now.

Then Kyungsoo sets his plate delicately off to the side, and just when Jongin thinks that the natural order of things is about to be restored with a punch, Kyungsoo leans in, cups his hands around Chanyeol’s face, and kisses him.

It takes Chanyeol a moment to respond, and then he’s placing his hands tentatively on Kyungsoo’s shoulders and kissing back more timidly than Jongin has ever seen Chanyeol kiss anyone, as if he’s afraid this is some kind of prank.

Given that his not infrequent prior attempts to flirt with Kyungsoo have all been met with physical violence or open exasperation, Jongin doesn’t blame Chanyeol for being terrified. It’s still hilarious to watch, and Jongin shares a quiet grin with Baekhyun and Jongdae. 

The kiss ends, and they all watch with bated breath as Kyungsoo sits back while Chanyeol stays frozen in place and stares at Kyungsoo.

“Oh,” Kyungsoo says. “You dropped your plate.”

Looking down at the ground, Chanyeol looks dismayed. 

“Oh.”

“Let’s get you a new one,” Kyungsoo says.

The three left sitting at the fire share a bemused glance once Kyungsoo is far enough away that he’s not likely to turn and see them. 

“Did that just happen?” Baekhyun starts.

“Do you want to be the one who gets punched tonight? Because he’s probably still listening,” Jongdae says. Werewolf hearing means that secrets can only occur within a pack settlement if nobody is aware of their spread.

“Not fair. He never punches you!”

“That’s because I’m not an asshole.”

At Baekhyun’s skeptical look, Jongdae amends his statement. “Okay, not as much of an asshole _as you_.”

Yixing joins them, then, giving everyone confused looks and asking what’s happened that has them all excited. All anyone will say is, “You’ll see.”

Jongin manages to retain a few tendrils of hope through dinner that he’ll still be able to sleep in Chanyeol’s tent tonight—this particular courtship has taken so long that he wouldn’t be surprised if Kyungsoo waits a few more days before taking things any further—but the tendrils fade one by one with every little bone Kyungsoo throws Chanyeol’s way. He resigns completely when Kyungsoo takes Chanyeol by the hand and leads him away from the dining pack immediately after they’ve eaten.

It takes barely a minute of letting his hearing drift to other conversations for Jongin to determine that Sehun will be in Junmyeon’s tent tonight, like he has been most nights lately.

That means that Jongin is down two for two of his preferred sleeping partners for when he’s not interested in sex. Looking around, he doesn’t see any likely substitutes that aren’t looking like they’re about to pair off for the night (although in the case of Yixing, Baekhyun and Jongdae, triad off might be more accurate). It seems that Jongin’s the only person around whose libido is on a break tonight.

Eventually, Yixing produces a guitar, and Jongdae and Baekhyun start singing. A number of people drift over to their little circle, attracted by the sound, and Jongin is confronted with being alone in the midst of many open displays of affection. Of the people not currently engaged with someone else, Minseok is the most appealing.

Since he’s already resigned to sleeping alone tonight, Jongin goes for broke and steals a seat next to Minseok, curling up to sleep on his shoulder as soon as he can make it look unintentional. Minseok always seems to be an amazing mix of adorable, strong, and warm that’s been making Jongin want to cuddle with him for ages.

Minseok stiffens briefly in surprise but doesn’t push him away, and Lu Han snorts softly next to them. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, kid.”

Trying not to show his irritation and give away that he’s not asleep just yet, Jongin keeps silent. He knows perfectly well that Minseok’s only interested in alphas and rarely pursues sex with any other than his own mate, but this has nothing to do with sex. 

His guise of being asleep takes a hit when he jolts in surprise as Sehun pipes up with, “No, he’s not trying for sex.”

“You sure about that?” Lu Han asks. “He sure looks all, ‘Look at me, I’m vulnerable, please fuck me.’”

“Nah,” Sehun says. “That’s just how Jongin looks when he’s asleep. If he actually wants sex, his hand ends up on your thigh, or he breathes on your neck, or he’ll do some other horribly sexy thing accidentally-on-purpose.”

“Oh,” Lu Han says. “And here I’ve been thinking he’s a slut with an amazingly transparent falling asleep act.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Sehun backpedals. “He’s a total slut. It’s just he also likes to sleep on people.”

“In addition to sleeping _with_ them,” Junmyeon pipes up.

Everyone groans. 

Jongin is annoyed and embarrassed that Sehun is giving his secrets away, but he’s also happy to learn that Sehun has actually noticed these things about him. Meanwhile, even though Minseok has to know from Jongin’s heartbeat that he’s awake, he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he rubs a small hand soothingly over the back of Jongin’s neck and tugs him closer, as if to tell him it’s okay. Shifting to sprawl one leg over one of Minseok’s, Jongin does doze off, then. 

When their entertainment finally fades for the evening, Minseok and Lu Han both offer Jongin a place to sleep, but Jongin feels a pang of guilt for seeking attention from these important people just because sleeping alone makes him feel lonely. Thinking he should act like the adult he actually is, he goes back to his own cold tent to sleep alone. 

 

The following morning, he “helps” Yixing mix herbs and poultices until Yixing catches him nodding off and banishes him to a corner of the tent, saying he doesn’t need the help that much.

Jongin is about to drift off when Yixing says, “Sehun says you don’t sleep well alone.”

“Sehun talks a lot,” Jongin replies.

“He’s worried about you,” Yixing says.

There’s a long pause in which Jongin debates telling the truth. He and Yixing aren’t exactly close friends, but being the only other beta in the entire pack means that there are things Yixing understands about him more than anyone else. It’s why he seeks out Yixing’s company sometimes; even if he’s just sitting quietly mixing herbs, Yixing is the only person Jongin can be around while he’s awake without feeling like he doesn’t quite fit.

Before he can decide to speak up, Yixing continues. “It is weird, though. You spend so many of your waking hours finding ways to be alone. Why does sleeping alone at night bug you?”

“I don’t fit,” Jongin says. “It’s not that I don’t like people, but I’m not so good at conversation. Then they all talk around me, and it’s obvious that I’m different from everyone, somehow. It makes me feel lonely.”

“Oh,” Yixing says. He looks confused, but Yixing looks confused often enough that Jongin doesn’t trust his own judgment on the subject.

“It’s nice at night, though,” Jongin continues, trying to clarify. “We’re all just people when we sleep. Or wolves.”

That earns him a soft smile from Yixing. “That’s true.”

“Do you not feel like that?” Jongin asks, eventually. There are some fundamental differences between him and Yixing, and he wonders if this is one of them. He isn’t sure if this is a beta thing or a Jongin thing.

But Yixing admits that he does, sometimes. “Not so much anymore, though. They may not always understand how I feel, but there are a lot of people who love me. I feel like I belong when they’re around me. But it took a while.”

Jongin smiles sadly. “Lately the people who love me are off with other people a lot, and they don’t always have time for me anymore.”

“Distracted by suitors?” Yixing comments, and Jongin has to nod in defeat. “That can be a struggle, but eventually they’ll realize they miss you and come back.”

“Do you have your eye on anyone?” Yixing asks after a pause.

And this is one of those places where they differ. Jongin has seen the way Yixing looks at Baekhyun and Jongdae, and he knows that he doesn’t feel that about anyone. He thinks it’s obvious to anyone looking, and his suspicions are confirmed by Yixing’s lack of surprise when Jongin’s answer to his question is a simple, “No.”

Yixing hmms in response, and the tent is quiet for long enough that Jongin really does drift off. When he wakes again, Yixing asks if he’s considered looking for a mate in another pack.

Jongin curls in on himself, like that alone will keep anyone from sending him to a new pack full of people he doesn’t know. “But I love everyone here.”

Frowning, Yixing opens his mouth to say something else—probably something like he could find a mate willing to leave their own pack—but Lu Han chooses to duck into the tent at that moment, saying, “Oh, that’s actually sweet.”

Out of deference to Yixing and the health of the pack, Jongin doesn’t throw anything at Lu Han for being a jerk and eavesdropping, lest he spill some of Yixing’s concoctions.

Yixing and Lu Han start chatting in the language of the pack they grew up with before they were sent to this one, and Jongin gets up to leave, feeling like he’s in the way.

He’s surprised when Lu Han stops him and more surprised still when Lu Han pats his lap. “It’s okay, Jongin. You can sleep on me.”

Worn out from a night of attempting to be a proud adult, Jongin caves and falls asleep with his head pillowed on Lu Han’s thigh. He doesn’t wake up again until lunch time, when he follows Lu Han to get food. They bring it back to Yixing’s tent to eat, and Jongin and promptly makes to fall asleep on Lu Han again as soon as he’s done with his meal, this time with his head propped on Lu Han’s shoulder so that he’s breathing on Lu Han’s neck, fingers brushing the thigh of the pack’s self-proclaimed “scariest omega” (Jongin thinks that’s really Kyungsoo, but he’d never tell either of them as much).

He can feel Lu Han’s snort in the rise and fall of his shoulders. “Are you propositioning me?”

“That depends,” Jongin says, moving so that his lips are brushing Lu Han’s neck as he speaks. “Is it working?”

“Oddly enough, yes,” Lu Han laughs. “But it helps that I’m curious whether you prefer topping or bottoming.”

“What makes you think I prefer one or the other?”

“Everyone does,” Lu Han’s eyebrows raise. “Don’t they?”

“I don’t,” Jongin says. 

Luckily, Lu Han drops the topic. It’s one Jongin has had to argue far more often than he thinks is really necessary. Patting Jongin’s head like he’s a puppy, Lu Han says, “After dinner, though. I’ve got things to do this afternoon.”

When Lu Han leaves to do whatever he has to do that’s more important than sex (probably soccer), Yixing pickups up the thread of their morning conversation so quickly that Jongin has trouble following for a few seconds.

“It’s nice that you love everyone in this pack, Jongin,” he says. “But it seems to me that there used to be someone you loved more than you love anyone else in this pack.”

It takes a moment for Jongin to do the math to determine that Yixing and Taemin were ever with the pack at the same time, even briefly. Yixing, Zitao, Kris, and Lu Han, along with a few others, came after the departure of several families left Jongin’s pack with a need for more bodies. The memory of those families leaving has melded enough with the memory of Taemin’s family doing the same that Jongin often forgets that the events happened two years apart.

“I’m surprised you remember Taemin,” Jongin says, hoping to shift this conversation off of its current trajectory.

“Chanyeol reminded me, the other day.” 

“Reminded as in you were talking about me?” Jongin is increasingly uncomfortable.

Yixing pauses for a moment, the only sound the soft scraping of a mortar and pestle as he grinds something Jongin doesn’t recognize by its scent. Whatever it is, the odor is awful and penetrating, and it isn’t helping with Jongin’s discomfort.

Finally Yixing says, “Sehun isn’t the only one worried about you.”

“Why?” Jongin asks. “Because I’m not interested in anyone as a mate? Maybe I’m just not made for mating.”

Yixing frowns, “It’s possible, and it’s fine if you’re not. But you seemed awfully close with Taemin. Apparently everyone expected you to be mates, if you’d turned out to be an omega.”

Jongin huffs, remembering those years of anxiety when he was clearly going through puberty but wasn’t presenting with either alpha or omega traits. He’d been smitten with Taemin, it’s true, even if he only realized it long after Taemin’s family’s dispute with the former pack alpha and subsequent departure from the pack. But still.

“I was fourteen,” he says, as if that explains everything. It really should. His priorities at fourteen don’t have much to do with his priorities now.

“That’s plenty old enough to bond,” Yixing says. “Especially when you could easily have already been presenting as a beta, since nobody in this pack knew the signs.”

“You think we _bonded_?” Jongin says, incredulous. Very few wolves ever bond. “Wouldn’t I have died of heartbreak by now? It’s been eight years.”

“Maybe,” Yixing says. “But not much is really known about bonding. It’s mostly legends, and those have all been embroidered for the sake of a good story for centuries. There’s a chance it could be less intense in some cases, especially if the personalities of the wolves involved are more laid back.”

Scraping the ground stinky stuff into a tiny jar, Yixing shakes his head. “But that’s not the point. The point is that the fair is coming up. You could go with us and see if you can find him.”

Jongin frowns. As much as he’d like to see his former best friend again, there are some issues with this. “Last I heard, his family had joined Minwoo’s pack. It’s not like I could just waltz up and say hi. And most packs aren’t going to let a beta mate with an alpha.”

Even the omega option for a beta is rare; he’d have to wait until all of the alphas in the pack had mates. Betas’ reduced fertility isn’t helpful to packs looking for strength in numbers if there’s an alpha available, so they’re usually left to childless relationships with fellow betas.

“Most packs aren’t our pack,” Yixing points out.

“You think he’d come back to a pack he left? He was old enough to choose to stay, if that was what he wanted.”

“A lot can change in eight years.”

“Yeah,” Jongin says. “He could be a complete asshole, for all I know.”

The whole conversation is one example of why Jongin prefers the company of his pack when they’re asleep. Seeing no end in sight, he decides to go make himself useful elsewhere.

 

They fall into Yixing’s sleeping tent in an awkward mess of limbs and giggling after dinner and dancing, Yixing having invited himself along with Jongin and Lu Han. More sex partners is more fun in Jongin’s book, and Lu Han had seemed happy enough about the addition.

Jongin tucks his feet up so that they’re inside the tent instead of out and rolls over to sprawl onto Yixing’s furs and Lu Han. His lips tangle with Lu Han’s, and Lu Han controls the kiss with a hand in Jongin’s hair.

A warm body settles against Jongin’s back, Yixing’s hands tracing up and down his sides, mouth fixed to the base of his neck. 

Their foreplay doesn’t move from that for quite some time, the three of them ungracefully kissing and rubbing up against each other as the need takes them in a hot mess of tangled limbs; Lu Han against Jongin’s hip, Jongin against Lu Han’s thigh, and Yixing against Jongin’s ass. Jongin would be perfectly happy to get off this way, but Lu Han pulls back from a kiss with Yixing to laugh.

“I can’t believe I’m in bed with the two best dancers in the pack and we’re getting off like a bunch of clumsy teenagers.”

Grinning up at him, Jongin asks, “How do you want me, then?”

Lu Han’s eyes trail thoughtfully down Jongin’s body, then over to Yixing behind him. Biting his dainty lower lip, he takes a moment before saying, “Let me watch Yixing fuck you, and then I’ll decide.”

It comes as a surprise to Jongin, who had expected Lu Han to want to top him like Kyungsoo always does, but not an unwelcome surprise. 

Yixing must catch some of Jongin’s surprise, because he murmurs, “Lu Han likes to be in charge, but not necessarily on top.”

He pats Jongin’s ass lightly as he pulls away to retrieve his pot of lubricant, and Jongin moves onto his stomach so that he can open his legs and cant his hips up. Resting his head on his arms, he watches Lu Han watch Yixing as Yixing presses a finger into him. 

Yixing and Jongin have done this enough that Yixing knows how Jongin likes it and where to find his prostate. He might not have Chanyeol’s hands, but he’s far more attentive. It almost frightens Jongin sometimes how quickly Yixing can work him up to the edge of orgasm.

Or that’s how it normally goes. This time, Yixing is just starting to press a second finger in alongside the first when Lu Han asks if he can take over. 

And Lu Han may not know much about sex with Jongin, but it’s clearly not his first time fingering someone. He finds Jongin’s prostate quickly, and then he works his fingers in and out in slow thrusts, hitting that spot every time, until Jongin is far past ready to take someone’s cock and wants nothing more than to come.

Then Yixing nudges Jongin’s hips up further to wrap a hand around his cock, and he comes after three slow tugs. 

Yixing’s hands are on Jongin’s hips, tugging him into position before he’s had time to recover, but Yixing is delicate enough about these things that Jongin trusts him not to make it uncomfortable. True to form, Yixing pushes in gently and angles his thrusts carefully away from Jongin’s prostate until Jongin starts to push back against him and beg for it. 

Yixing’s hips are the stuff of songs (actually literally—Baekhyun wrote a whole song about them once), snapping into Jongin with a perfect, sharp rhythm. It takes Jongin a few moments to collect himself enough to realize that they’ve been ignoring Lu Han, but when he looks around, Lu Han is sitting out of his reach, watching the two of them with a hand around his cock. 

Jongin settles for making sure they’re putting on an excellent show instead, arching his back prettily and biting his own arm to muffle his moans. Rocking back to meet Yixing’s thrusts like the wanton slut he knows he is, he catches Lu Han’s eye and notes that he’s developing a pretty flush. Jongin smirks.

He doesn’t reach for his own cock so that he’ll still be hard if Lu Han decides he wants it after this, but it only makes the desire build up inside him even more.

“Come inside him, Yixing,” Lu Han says, somewhere between a request and a command, when Yixing’s pace has picked up like he’s getting close. 

“Fuck, please,” Jongin whines. With his aversion to knots, he only gets to feel someone come inside him when he’s with another beta, or the rare omega who likes to top. Practically speaking, that means Yixing or Kyungsoo.

He almost regrets allowing it, though, when Yixing’s come is dribbling out of him and down his thighs while Lu Han is wrapping his gorgeous thighs around Jongin’s hips, decision made. It’s a bit uncomfortable for a moment, but then Yixing drags a finger through the mess and up to where it’s spilling out of Jongin while Jongin thrusts into Lu Han, envying him the omega’s lack of need for lubrication and prep. Jongin moans as Yixing nudges just the tip of his finger back into his stretched hole, rhythm faltering for a moment.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” Lu Han goads, but he doesn’t really look displeased. 

Pulling himself together, Jongin picks up a steady rhythm that he makes lewd with sinuous snaps of his hips that say, _We’re just here fucking because we like fucking_. Lu Han grins at him between moans that.

Lu Han is worked up enough that he comes after only a few moments, but he orders Jongin to keep going and manages a second orgasm just as Jongin needs to pull out to catch his own in his hand. 

Jongin rolls out of the way after that to watch Yixing fuck Lu Han through another orgasm, then sucks Lu Han off for his fourth while Yixing continues to rock into him. 

 

________________

 

“Jongin?”

Despite Yixing and Sehun’s combined baiting over the past few weeks, Jongin doesn’t think anyone really expected him to find Taemin at this fair. It was more of a ruse to get him to come to the fair, where they presumably thought he would miraculously fall in love with someone else in the few days they planned to be here. Jongin had only agreed to come to get Sehun to stop harping him (and maybe in the hope that he’ll give up on the “find Jongin a mate” business when he inevitably doesn’t find anyone here).

But now, in the midst of a crowd of werewolf bodies so densely packed that Jongin can’t tell one smell from another, he finds himself standing in front of his childhood best friend.

Taemin is hardly more than skin and bones, wearing a rough shirt that hangs loosely off his broad shoulders. His hair is long and tied back in a scruffy ponytail. He looks like he’s been living as a lone wolf in the wild for the past year or two.

But the light in his eyes and the shy, close-lipped smile on his stupidly plush lips definitely belong to Taemin. Before he knows it, Jongin is shouting and leaping forward to get his arms around Taemin’s frame, half to feel if he’s really real. Taemin embraces him in response, and they both cling to each other for a few moments, laughing with surprised joy and then scenting each other out. 

The scent of Taemin brings a million memories to the surface of Jongin’s mind—of horsing around, of laughing seemingly endlessly, of hiding in the woods to skip lessons so that they could practice dances for their roles in a summer play for the pack instead. Not ten minutes ago, he would have been unable to recall Taemin’s scent if he’d been asked to describe it, but he knows it as sure as anything now that it’s filling his nose.

There are a million questions flitting through Jongin’s head, but they’re going so quickly that he can’t get any of them to his mouth. When they part to look at each other, all he can come up with is, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Taemin responds. His little smile changes to a grin, if somehow still a shy one.

“How- how have you been?” Jongin finally manages. He’s noticing little major things now, like the complete lack of claim marks on Taemin’s neck—no pack mark and no mate mark. A mate mark would be surprising on an alpha, but Taemin is a good two years past when he should have been claimed for a pack.

The smile falls from Taemin’s face. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk?”

Jongin nods, and they find a spot to sit at the edge of the camping grounds. As soon as they sit down, he asks, “What’s with the lack of a pack mark?” 

With a sad smile, Taemin says, “I left my pack before I could be claimed.” 

“But why?” Jongin frowns. Going without a pack is an awful choice to make, and that means Taemin’s been without one for at least two years.

Biting his lip, Taemin hesitates. “Can I ask you a question, first?”

Jongin nods.

“Your pack,” Taemin starts. “Rumor has it that you’ve got an alpha who’s been claimed by another alpha?”

Oh. Minseok has created quite a stir, walking around this fair with his intense alpha scent and very obvious claim mark. It’s lucky for everyone here that he already had a widespread reputation for being tough as nails, because the entire werewolf world on this part of the continent already knows better than to try to harass him physically. 

“He’s our pack alpha’s mate,” Jongin says, wondering if he should worry that Taemin will react badly to that information. But while Taemin’s eyebrows raise in clear surprise, he doesn’t look upset.

“Then,” he pauses, clearly searching for words. Biting his lip again, he scrunches a hand in his hair. The gesture brushes his hair off his face momentarily.

In that moment, Jongin wants to kiss him. He blinks back the thought, focusing instead on Taemin’s words as he begins his explanation again.

“Do you remember Jinki and Kibum?” He asks, naming two omega boys whose families had left Jongin’s pack before Taemin’s family did. 

Jongin nods. 

Taemin picks up a long, curved twig from the ground at their feet and taps it idly in the dirt, and Jongin wonders what it is that Taemin is so afraid to tell him.

“They mated,” he says finally.

“Oh,” Jongin responds. Two omegas, mated. He can’t help but wonder idly what they do about their heats, even as he winces at what trying to be a mated pair of omegas in most werewolf packs must be like. “Did the pack not respond well?”

“Most of the pack wasn’t thrilled,” Taemin says. “But I think they would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for the pack alpha. Everyone just thought it was a bit weird, or that they’d grow out of it eventually.”

At that, he launches into a long story. The pack alpha had taken an interest in Kibum, whom Jongin recalls as a strikingly pretty omega, with razor sharp cheekbones and a delicate chin. Refusing to acknowledge the claim of one omega on another as legitimate, the pack alpha had pursued Kibum despite numerous rejections.

Eventually, he’d declared that all omegas of age were expected to mate with an alpha to maximize the reproductive capabilities of the pack. Nervous about the outcome of the decision, Taemin had joined two other alphas—Minho and Jonghyun, both also children of defectors from Jongin’s pack—in choosing to leave the pack with Jinki and Kibum. 

“But where did you go?” Jongin asks. Most wolves who leave one pack choose to throw themselves on the mercy of another, but Taemin doesn’t look like he’s been living well enough to have been with a pack this whole time.

“We tried hiding in a human city for a little over a year,” Taemin says, grimacing. Clearly that hadn’t worked out. “We’ve been roughing it since then. I came out here hoping I might be able to find a pack for us.”

Jongin has been hoping he’d say that since he got to the part about leaving his last pack. “You should join mine!”

As soon as it’s out of his mouth, he thinks it sounds far too eager. He still hardly knows this grown up Taemin, really, but he’s so familiar that Jongin feels like he does.

His enthusiasm earns a laugh from Taemin and a jab with the twig he’d been fiddling with while he talked. “Think your alpha would have us? It’s not Sooman anymore, right? His mate wasn’t an alpha.”

Laughing, Jongin shakes his head—Sooman had ruffled a lot of feathers as pack alpha, but Kris is more laid back. 

It takes a bit of thought to figure out if Kris would allow Taemin and his friends to join the pack, but there are things Jongin knows work in Taemin’s favor. Minho was a friend of Junmyeon’s, and Junmyeon is at the fair as the pack delegate for any major decisions that need to be made. New additions to the pack will need final approval from Kris, but it’s a good bet that a yes from Junmyeon will go for Kris as well. Jongin tells Taemin as much, with the warning that the pack has been attacked enough times in recent years to be nervous about newcomers.

Still, Jongin is optimistic, and he can tell his optimism is rubbing off on Taemin. They agree that Jongin will bring Taemin to Junmyeon to discuss it. But the day is still young, and Jongin is loath to move. He thinks Taemin feels the same way.

“So,” Taemin changes the subject. “Are you a beta, then? You still smell like you did when I left.”

Grimacing, Jongin nods. Taemin had left while everyone was still making comments about ‘late bloomers’ to Jongin in failed attempts to console him (or maybe themselves) over his failure to present the classic signs of either an alpha or an omega long after puberty had clearly set in for him.

“What are the pack’s rules about betas mating?” Taemin asks. His smile seems almost sly, but Jongin isn’t sure if he’s reading things into it. Throughout much of their time talking, Jongin has been focusing helplessly on Taemin himself. Taemin must be some kind of magnet, he thinks. Even though he’s gaunt and in need of a bath, he’s so self-possessed and graceful that Jongin can only think he’s beautiful. 

He wants to kiss along Taemin’s jaw, curl into him, and bask in his scent like a submissive omega, but he pushes that thought down because he doesn’t know what to make of it. Instead, he musters up a rueful laugh.

“The ‘rule’ seems to be that they’ll find a mate for me if they have to throw a ball and invite every eligible bachelor in the whole werewolf world to attend.” 

Taemin laughs at that, and even his wide-mouthed grin is stupidly pretty. He reaches up and pinches Jongin’s cheek, “What, nobody in your pack wants to claim a mate with this ugly mug?”

Shoving him off, Jongin grins back. “Hey, look who’s talking. You can’t even get a pack to claim you, let alone a mate.”

“Excuse me, but I was the most sought-after alpha in the pack before I left,” Taemin says, shoving him back.

“I’m _still_ the most sought-after beta in my pack.”

“There’s how many betas in your pack now? One?” Taemin snorts.

“Two,” Jongin corrects, laughing. He doesn’t add that the popularity contest is actually a tie.

Taemin helps Jongin with the errands Yixing had sent him on that day, and it’s evening by the time they make it back to camp. Jongin’s mouth hurts from smiling. 

As they approach the camp, the thought hits him like a punch to the gut how much it’ll hurt if Junmyeon rejects Taemin’s request. Mates are one thing, but Jongin has gone the past eight years without his best friend. The smile drops from his face as he Junmyeon looks up from his dinner, expression going from curiosity to shock as he registers the identity of Jongin’s guest.

“Taemin?” Sehun yelps, while everyone else’s eyebrows appear set to climb off their faces. “Holy fuck.”

Once the commotion has died down, Junmyeon presses a bowl of stew into Taemin’s hands (“You look like you need three,” he says) and invites him to sit with them. Taemin repeats his whole story for Junmyeon, with the others listening and adding commentary. 

Hearing the story for the second time leaves Jongin plenty of opportunities to watch Taemin rather than listen. He remembers Taemin as shy when interacting with adults and unfamiliar people in his early teens, but this Taemin is more confident. His words flow smoothly, and he doesn’t have trouble saying everything he needs to say.

Junmyeon, for his part, listens with the same gentle expression he always wears. It’s impossible for Jongin to tell what he’s thinking. He waits, instead, curled up against Yixing’s side and trying to remember to breathe.

When Taemin comes to the end of his tale, Junmyeon purses his lips and nods. “I see.”

After a brief pause, he continues. “Jinki and Kibum. Do they want children?”

Stiffening, Taemin looks at him warily. “They want children very much, but-“ he hesitates. “I’m not sure how to put this. They want to raise the children as a couple? Not like our old pack alpha wanted, with Kibum becoming his mate. I’m not sure how they’re planning on the getting pregnant part.”

Thinking of another mated pair struggling with the logistics of having babies, Jongin looks across to Minseok, who’s got Sehun draped all over his lap. To an outsider they must look like a normal alpha-omega mated pair, but when Minseok speaks, Taemin’s eyes go to the extra claim mark on his neck. Jongin can see Taemin registering that this is the notorious alpha mate of the pack alpha.

“Kris would never separate anyone from their mate,” Minseok says. “Junmyeon’s asking because our pack could use more pups running around.”

His fingers card through Sehun’s hair while he speaks, and Taemin’s eyes track the movement with apparent confusion. Jongin hopes he’s not going to have to try to explain the nature of _that_ relationship to Taemin later, because nobody in the entire pack quite understands it, not even Jongin or Zitao, Sehun’s best friend. He’s not even sure that Minseok and Sehun understand it.

“Anyway,” Junmyeon says. “I need to think on this, and you should probably discuss this with Jinki and the others. Are they nearby?”

It turns out that Taemin’s mini-pack is staying a couple of hours away, where they’re less likely to be discovered by their old pack than if they were all at the fair. Fortunately, they’re in the direction of home for Jongin’s pack, so they agree to meet in the morning of the following day. 

Taking his leave, Taemin shifts to wolf form and leaps into the trees. It’s fully dark already, making Taemin’s inky black coat hard to see as he slips away.

When Jongin gives up on trying to watch him go, he turns back to his packmates to see that everyone present is staring at him. He tries not to roll his eyes.

Junmyeon shakes his head like he’s trying to chase a thought out of it and addresses the group at large. “Any thoughts?”

It’s clear that he’s asking a serious question about the potential additions to their pack, but Sehun waggles his eyebrows at Jongin and says, “Yeah, Jongin. Any thoughts?”

“Sehun,” Junmyeon chides, even as several of the others snort.

Jongin decides to get his revenge by sidling over to drape himself over Junmyeon. Keeping his eyes locked on Sehun’s, he pillows his head on Junmyeon’s shoulder and takes a deep breath of the scent Sehun’s been gushing about for nearly two years now. 

Sehun narrows his eyes in response, but he must be too comfortable half in Minseok’s lap to launch a counterattack, because he stays put.

As Junmyeon herds the conversation back to an actual discussion of the merits of adding five new wolves to their pack, Jongin lets his eyes slide shut and thinks. 

The heady scent of Junmyeon is all around him. It’s more powerful than Taemin’s scent, but it doesn’t make Jongin want to make a show of submission the way he had earlier with Taemin. That’s never happened to Jongin with any alpha, barring when he loses to one in a fight.

He is, however, quite enjoying the scent. Curling closer to Junmyeon, he’s surprised when Junmyeon leans down to ask in his ear, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Huh?” Jongin looks up to see Junmyeon wearing an amused look.

“Taemin will smell me on you tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Jongin thinks about that for a moment. But he and Taemin aren’t anything more than recently reunited best friends, and Jongin needs reassurance tonight. “He’ll understand.”

Lu Han snorts. “He better. If he’s going to have a problem with you being a slut, you’ll never work as mates.”

It’s a good point, but Lu Han could have phrased it more delicately. Jongin glares at him. 

“I just wanted to make sure you were aware,” Junmyeon says, soothing. 

He traces a hand down over Jongin’s back, letting it rest at his hip in a protective alpha gesture. Jongin mewls softly, startling even himself. He’s rarely aroused so quickly, and not generally by displays of dominance or submission. The whole day has been so strange that he chalks it up to his body reacting to stress and decides not to worry about it. 

With a bemused glance, Junmyeon moves his hand down from Jongin’s hip to his ass. He’s obviously just pushing buttons to see if he can get any more reactions out of Jongin—Junmyeon is normally restrained in public, even with Sehun—but Jongin sticks with his idea of not worrying about it and lets loose the gasp that wants to come out.

True to form, Junmyeon suggests that they move to the tent he’s sharing with Jongin and Sehun, and Jongin agrees. As they stand up, Junmyeon says, “Sehun, come with us.”

It’s said in the casually commanding voice of an alpha, and it serves to remind Jongin of why he doesn’t often sleep with Junmyeon. Nobody else in the pack takes charge during sex quite as completely as Junmyeon does, and it tends to chafe at the part of Jongin that doesn’t easily submit to authority figures. 

Still, it’s not directed at Jongin but Sehun, whose kink for authority figures borders on absurd. In the tent Junmyeon is softer about telling Jongin to lie down than he is telling Sehun to kneel out of the way, like he’s noticed Jongin’s discomfort. 

Then he kisses Jongin into the tent floor, and any lingering discomfort disappears. Jongin wraps his arms around Junmyeon’s shoulders and loses himself to the warm feeling of Junmyeon’s mouth on his. Strong, firm hands make their way down his sides to thumb over his hips, and Jongin arches almost helplessly into the touches, wrapping his legs around Junmyeon’s to get closer.

Junmyeon sucks Jongin to full hardness while working him open. Overwhelmed by the double stimulation, Jongin has to close his eyes against the sight of Junmyeon’s mouth on his cock to keep from coming on the spot. He presses a fist against his mouth to keep his moans down and tangles his other hand in the bedding beneath him. 

Opening his eyes again, Jongin spots Sehun watching them with hungry eyes. Made conscious of the attention, Jongin allows his hips to jerk a little harder and arches his back the next time Junmyeon’s fingers find a nice spot, knowing that Junmyeon usually makes Sehun stay perfectly still. He lets out a little groan while he does it, just to gloat that he’s getting all of the attention from Sehun’s alpha. 

Sehun’s lips press into a tight little line, and one of his hands twitches in its place on his thigh like he’s having trouble holding still. Jongin almost laughs at him, but Junmyeon does something just then with his tongue just under the head of Jongin’s cock while pressing fingers against his prostate. There’s nothing deliberate about the cry that falls out of Jongin’s mouth in response, this time. When he stops seeing stars, he looks down to find Junmyeon watching him.

Pulling back from Jongin’s dick and swallowing delicately, Junmyeon smiles. “Good?”

Jongin nods, almost annoyed at how collected Junmyeon looks after sucking cock. 

He opens his legs wider for Junmyeon once he’s come down enough from his first orgasm to take it and watches Sehun watch while Junmyeon fucks him firmly into the bedding. His cock is back to achingly hard again after barely a few thrusts, but Junmyeon bats his hand away when he tries to take care of it. Jongin grunts in frustration. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you,” Junmyeon says.

Sure enough, when Junmyeon’s knot gets to being unworkable, he pulls out and calls Sehun over. Jongin expects him to knot Sehun before it’s too late, but instead he lets Jongin take Sehun on his hands and knees and settles in front of Sehun’s mouth. Jongin has never seen Sehun as wet as he is now, and he wonders if it’s the effect of having an alpha around or if Sehun just really likes being denied. Or maybe it’s just Junmyeon?

Whatever it is, he’s wonderfully slick and making sloppy, wet noises up where he’s trying to suck Junmyeon’s cock around the knot while Jongin thrusts into him. Jongin shifts his angle, knowing after plenty of trial and error exactly where Sehun’s prostate is, and he can’t resist smirking at Junmyeon when Sehun wails. He may not turn Sehun on the way that Junmyeon does, but he does know how to get him off.

“Junmyeon, may I come?” Sehun gasps. Jongin has always joked that Sehun comes early and often.

But Junmyeon shakes his head. “Hold on for us, Sehun. You’re doing well.”

It amazes Jongin that Sehun succeeds in complying, but he does. 

Jongin, on the other hand, isn’t about to ask Junmyeon for permission to come. Pulling out when he’s on the verge of orgasm, he catches his mess in his own hand.

Junmyeon spills half into Sehun’s mouth and half over his face, and Sehun looks disgustingly pleased about it while Jongin roots around for a towel with his clean hand. Upon finding one, he wipes his hand and throws the towel at Sehun, hoping to keep the sleeping furs relatively clean.

Junmyeon doesn’t let Sehun come until he’s on Junmyeon’s knot, quite a while later. Jongin watches Sehun as Junmyeon pushes into him that final time before his thrusts are limited to a careful grind. Biting a knuckle, Sehun scrunches his eyes shut and pushes back into Junmyeon. His other arm is flung above his head, and every muscle in his body is tight like he’d be coming if Junmyeon weren’t holding him back with fingers around his cock. 

Then Junmyeon lets go of Sehun’s dick, and Sehun scrabbles for leverage to grind himself back onto Junmyeon’s cock until he comes. It looks almost painful, from the way his back arches and his mouth opens in a soundless scream. 

He goes boneless after that and looks at Junmyeon with a glazed, almost vacant expression, still panting from the exertion. Jongin wonders what it’s like for an omega—the one time he’d been knotted was such an unpleasant experience that he’d spent several weeks afterward convincing Chanyeol that it hadn’t destroyed their friendship. 

And yet Sehun is hard again long before Junmyeon’s knot has gone down. He pulls off another orgasm just as Junmyeon has his last, and still without touching his cock. Junmyeon gives him this disgustingly fond look and a kiss after he’s pulled out. 

The kiss drags on, and when Junmyeon pulls Sehun half on top of him, Jongin watches the mess of Junmyeon’s come and Sehun’s own slick dripping out of Sehun. Wondering if he could ever enjoy the process, Jongin slides a curious finger through the mess and up against Sehun’s rim.

Sehun grunts and twists to look at him. After a moment, his eyebrows jerk up in understanding. He snorts. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“Thinking about what?” Junmyeon asks.

“Taemin knotting him,” Sehun clarifies, grinning. 

“I am not!”

“Don’t lie,” Sehun persists. “I know you’re thinking about what it would be like. I mean, Taemin’s knot probably isn’t as big as Chanyeol’s. Maybe you’d be okay w—“

Fed up, Jongin stuffs a pillow in Sehun’s face as Junmyeon looks on in amusement.

 

Barely an hour after they depart in the morning, they run into Taemin coming from the opposite direction. 

“Taemin, is something wrong?” Junmyeon asks. They’re not supposed to meet up with Taemin and his friends until they’re much farther down the road. 

But Taemin smiles and gives an explanation about not wanting his friends to wait too close to the road, claiming he’d come to join Junmyeon’s party so that he can signal to them when they get close. 

He’s facing Jongin and Junmyeon as he says it, with Sehun off behind his back making a gagging face and then waggling his eyebrows. Clearly Jongin spends too much time with Sehun, because he’s able to gather that Sehun thinks the whole story is a load of bullshit and Taemin is just here to spend more time with Jongin.

It is true that Taemin’s friends are in danger if they’re found by the wrong wolves, being defectors from one pack without the official protection of another, but Taemin isn’t really much better off for lacking a pack claim. When they set off, Taemin makes a beeline for Jongin’s side, and Jongin considers that Sehun might actually be right. It should make him happy that his former best friend clearly still likes him, but there’s a weird knot of nerves in Jongin’s stomach. The arm that Taemin slides around Jongin’s waist is oddly tense, too.

The knot in Jongin’s stomach only gets worse when Taemin presses up against Jongin and leans in to take an obvious sniff. He looks up at Jongin quizzically. “Junmyeon?”

“Oh,” Jongin says, less out of surprise than out of a lack for other words. He should have thought about how to explain this. “That. We’re not courting, if that’s what you’re wondering? It was just sex.”

He cringes at the phrasing, but there’s no better way to put it. 

The tension drops from Taemin’s arm almost instantly, and the knot in Jongin’s stomach eases a little when Taemin smiles at him in obvious relief. “I see. Do you do that a lot?”

“I…yeah,” Jongin says. Up ahead of them, Sehun makes a choking noise. “Like, a lot, a lot. With a lot of people.”

Taemin raises his eyebrows, but his smile doesn’t dim. Fortunately he doesn’t ask why, because it’s not something Jongin likes to discuss in front of so many people. After a moment of thought, he says, “Oh, I think I get that. I mean, I probably would too, given the opportunity.”

More choking noises ensue from the peanut gallery (one sounds suspiciously like “perfect”), but Jongin feels too relieved to care. The knot in his stomach dissolves into butterflies.

A couple hours later, Taemin’s arm is still around Jongin, but at his shoulders instead of his waist, when he asks the party to wait for a moment and lets out three quick, ugly squawks that remind Jongin of an offended squirrel.

Nobody speaks, but the alphas all tense subtly. Strong alpha scents start to build in the air in a subconscious alpha reaction to intimidate the enemy. If Taemin were leading them into some kind of ambush, this would be the first chance. Jongin hopes that Taemin won’t be offended by the obvious suspicion; their pack has been attacked too many times for them to trust anyone.

After a few moments of tense silence as they listen to the sound of human footsteps moving through the woods, a handful of bedraggled werewolves in human form come out of the trees. They’re all carrying sacks of supplies, and they look just about as wary as Junmyeon’s party for several moments until the tallest of them breaks into a grin.

“Junmyeonnie?” 

It doesn’t look to Jongin like these wolves are planning to attack them, but he’s still surprised when, with a grin, Junmyeon almost recklessly dashes the last few feet between the two groups to throw his arms around Minho. “Minho! It’s been ages.”

After that, they’re caught up in a giant mess of greetings as old friends catch up and Yixing and Lu Han are introduced to the pack members they were supposed to have replaced. Yixing is instantly friendly, the way he always is, but Lu Han gives a couple of wary greetings and hangs back with Sehun, who doesn’t really know any of the men other than Taemin.

 

_____________

 

Taemin hits the water of the bathing pool with a yelp and a splash worthy of the children’s summer jumping games. When he surfaces, his face is indignant. “What was that for?”

Laughing, Jongin strips off his clothing and jumps from the rock he’d pushed Taemin from just moments before. It was a brief moment of glorious revenge for all the butterflies Taemin has been putting in Jongin’s stomach since they ran into each other at the fair, but Jongin won’t tell him that. Once he’s finished gasping from the cold, he says honestly, if not in answer to Taemin’s question, “You smell like you haven’t had a bath in months.” 

“So?” Taemin says. “It’s not like I objected to taking one. You didn’t have to push me!”

It is true that Taemin hadn’t protested Jongin’s suggestion. If it hadn’t been for Kyungsoo scolding Jongin for dragging a guest of the pack off for a bath before he’d even had a chance to eat, he would have gone the moment Kris consented to giving Taemin’s party probationary pack member status.

Privately, Jongin is hoping that all the butterflies in his stomach are some kind of twisted response to Taemin’s offensive smell. He really hasn’t bathed in months, due to the difficulties of being packless in the middle of werewolf-controlled forest. 

Watching his own tan fingers work soap through Taemin’s hair, Jongin is hit by a strong wave of disorientation. This is something they used to do in this very same pool when they were children. The pool is the same, more or less, as is the fluttery, nervous feeling Jongin gets around Taemin, but Taemin is an older Taemin, different in a lot of ways from his younger self. It doesn’t really make sense to Jongin that he could still have a crush on someone he’s not even sure he knows anymore.

Jongin wonders if the pool is really different too, in some way he hasn’t noticed but that might be obvious to Taemin. Or maybe Jongin himself has changed.

“Is it weird being back here?” He asks into the silence that’s spread between them.

“You have no idea,” Taemin says. “It’s all so familiar, but everything looks smaller than I remember. Except the people got bigger. And like, Junmyeon and Kris are in charge?”

Jongin smiles as Taemin goes on about how he’d known Kris was expected to take over, but that he’d never really thought about what that would be like. And that Junmyeon was a complete surprise.

He falls silent again when he ducks his head to rinse out his hair, though, and they both stay silent and thoughtful as Jongin scrubs Taemin’s back and Taemin scrubs the rest of himself. The mood is strangely heavy in a way that isn’t entirely unpleasant. It persists even when Taemin tries to lighten it by joking about Jongin being almost as in need of a bath as Taemin had been when he offers to reciprocate the assistance.

His laugh at his own joke is awkward and short-lived, and Jongin is too dumbstruck by the sight of Taemin turning to smile shyly at him to respond at all. 

Taemin’s hands are soothing and paradoxically overwhelming in Jongin’s hair; Jongin’s body aches for more of Taemin even as it revels in the feeling of Taemin’s hands on him. It’s a pressing need he hasn’t felt with anyone before.

With Jongin’s hair finished, Taemin takes him by the shoulders to get him to turn around. Taemin’s fingers on his back are so mesmerizing that Jongin almost forgets he still needs to wash the rest of himself. 

Neither of them has spoken again when they pull themselves out of the water to lay out to dry on the rocks by the pool. The water rushing by in the stream they’ve partially diverted for the bathing pool is loud in Jongin’s ears, and it just seems to get louder and louder the longer Taemin lies still and stares at him silently.

Finally Taemin leans close to him and raises a hand to lay fingers along Jongin’s jaw. Jongin’s eyes focus in on Taemin’s soft lips as Taemin’s thumb settles on his chin to hold it in place, so that he ends up cross-eyed when Taemin closes the distance between them and kisses him. 

Jongin gasps against Taemin’s lips and closes his eyes. He deepens the kiss almost immediately, bringing his hands up to hold Taemin’s shoulders for leverage while he licks into Taemin’s mouth. The wet warmth is like a taste of water after a long run, and all Jongin wants is more of it. Taemin runs his teeth along Jongin’s tongue before pulling back to nip at his lips. 

Despite the bath, all Jongin can smell is Taemin. It’s no longer coated with the smells of sweat and dirt and life in the wild, but that just makes the underlying musk harder to resist. It hits Jongin then that the scent is getting stronger with Taemin’s arousal, and that Jongin himself is hard enough to fuck already. He wants to wrap himself around Taemin and rub up against him and have Taemin fill him up right here on the rocks. 

Just as Jongin is realizing that he’s starting to act like an omega in heat, Taemin slides his arm to Jongin’s waist, pulls them closer, and tries to roll so that Jongin is lying on top of him. That’s when Jongin freezes. He pulls away, panting, and stares at Taemin for a moment before backing away.

“Jongin,” Taemin looks concerned. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”

But the problem is all Jongin. He’s not even really sure what the problem is, just that his feelings are overwhelmingly intense and things are moving far too quickly.

He gabbles out something probably incomprehensible about needing some time to think and runs away.

 

There are two sets of feet crunching through the dirt toward Kyungsoo’s tent. Lying inside, Jongin instantly regrets his decision to invade Kyungsoo’s space the way he would Chanyeol’s or Sehun’s. Even more, he regrets that he’d fallen asleep and hadn’t woken up in time to light any candles. Hanging around unexpected in another wolf’s tent in the dark is a bad idea, and Kyungsoo sometimes reacts before he thinks. 

If only he’d had the guts to talk to Kyungsoo when he’d offered yesterday, when Jongin had begged an early dinner from him so that he wouldn’t have to face Taemin when the whole pack gathered for dinner, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

It’s too late for Jongin to duck out gracefully, so he sits up and waits for Kyungsoo to discover him. When two figures enter the tent carelessly, mid-kiss—Jongin can tell by the size of the second person that it’s Chanyeol even before their scents register in his brain—he gives them a moment to catch his scent before he gets to his feet and ducks apologetically toward the exit.

“I’m sorry,” he says, babbling in embarrassment. “I’ll come back another time. I should have thought—“

Before he can finish, Chanyeol is blocking his way with the arm that he doesn’t already have wrapped around Kyungsoo’s waist. 

“Jongin, it’s okay.” Kyungsoo says. He places a soothing hand on Jongin’s shoulder and starts to guide him back into the tent. As Jongin follows, Chanyeol turns toward the exit. 

“I should go.”

“No, stay.” It’s Jongin’s turn to stop Chanyeol with a hand on his arm. He wants Kyungsoo’s advice, but Chanyeol’s presence is never unwelcome.

They end up sitting on Kyungsoo’s cushions, with Chanyeol draping his arms over Jongin’s back while Kyungsoo gets a light going. 

In the dim light of the candle, Jongin can see the look of concern on Kyungsoo’s face as he tugs a cushion in front of Jongin and sits down facing him. He takes one of Jongin’s hands in his and, watching him carefully, asks, “What’s going on? This is about Taemin, isn’t it?”

The words and questions have been turning over and over in Jongin’s mind for days, but they all fly out of his head with Kyungsoo’s dark eyes on him. He feels childish, interrupting his friends’ night for this. But when he tenses, Chanyeol starts massaging his shoulders with big hands, and Kyungsoo traces meaningless patterns into Jongin’s palm with his fingertips. He knows that they care about him, and that everyone has been worried. 

“Maybe you should start with what happened,” Kyungsoo suggests when Jongin continues to hesitate.

Closing his eyes, Jongin tells them about the bath, the making out, and his panic. It’s been a week, and he hasn’t been able to meet Taemin’s eyes since it happened. The story sounds small and hollow out loud, and he’s too afraid of the expressions he’ll see to open his eyes again when he finishes.

“Why did you panic?” Kyungsoo asks carefully. He doesn’t sound judgmental, so Jongin opens his eyes cautiously.

“It was really intense,” Jongin says. “I’ve never wanted someone that much, and everything was happening really fast. It scared me.”

“So why haven’t you told him that?” Kyungsoo asks. “I’m sure he’d be okay with taking it more slowly.”

“Would he?” Jongin bites his lip. “He knows I’m promiscuous. Wouldn’t he be offended that I have sex with a lot of people but not him?”

“You said yourself that it’s different with him,” Kyungsoo says. “I think he’d understand.”

“And if he doesn’t, I’ll chase him out of the pack myself,” Chanyeol adds. “If he can’t respect your right to decide who you have sex with, he doesn’t deserve our Jongin.”

“But there’s a difference between respecting and understanding,” Jongin hesitates. “And…”

What he wants to say next is a non-sequitur of such proportions that he doesn’t know how to bring it up. They’re probably right about Taemin understanding his nerves, but he has another problem.

“And what?” Kyungsoo asks.

“And what about knotting?” Jongin asks. “I don’t know if I want that. Won’t that bug him?”

“Huh?” Chanyeol’s hands still on his shoulders. “I never knot you. It doesn’t bug me.”

Jongin’s not sure how to explain the difference without offending Chanyeol. He cares about what Taemin wants far more than he does with Chanyeol, but he can’t really explain why. For lack of a better explanation, he cringes while he squeezes that one out in broken words.

Kyungsoo doesn’t look confused, though, and this is why Jongin wanted Kyungsoo’s opinion more than Chanyeol’s or Sehun’s. “Is it possible that you’re really thinking about him as a potential mate and not just a sex partner, Jongin?”

The suggestion of a mate sets the blinding panic swirling in Jongin’s stomach again, but this time he’s anchored between Kyungsoo and Chanyeol’s warm hands, which started moving again the second he started struggling to answer Chanyeol’s question. He can’t run away, and he wouldn’t have sought out Kyungsoo if he’d really intended to keep running. With tears welling up in his eyes, he can barely meet Kyungsoo’s eyes long enough to make it clear that his nod is in response to Kyungsoo’s question.

“Oh,” Chanyeol says softly. Kyungsoo lets go of Jongin’s hand in favor of cupping his cheeks and wiping away the tears that spill over.

As much as he’s been trying to avoid the mate thoughts, it’s the only explanation for why he’s so worried about things that don’t normally bother him. He’s a beta, not an omega. He doesn’t have enticing omega pheromones or heats, and he doesn’t like being knotted. No normal alpha would want him for a mate—maybe someone like Kris, but Jongin is pretty sure Minseok loves knots and that alphas like Kris aren’t all that common. And Taemin is wonderful, beautiful, and fun. He deserves a proper omega mate who fits into the normal pattern of things, not Jongin.

In short, Jongin feels deficient. He didn’t think he’d ever felt that way before, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he’s felt that way since he was a young teenager. He’d kept waiting to present with either a knot or the self-lubricating trait that marks omegas and a scent that announced _alpha_ or _omega_ to everyone around, secretly hoping for the latter because he thought Taemin would make a good mate, but none of that ever happened.

With his body wracked by sobs and his mind going too fast for his mouth to keep up, his attempts to explain all of this come out in a garbled mess full of pauses while he gasps for breath and sniffles. 

When he finally comes to a stop, Kyungsoo is looking at him softly. Chanyeol has ditched his kneading to wrap his arms around Jongin’s shoulders instead.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” Kyungsoo asks. “But I still think you should talk to him. He’s always looking at you like you’re amazing, Jongin. I don’t think he thinks you’re deficient. And it’s up to him to decide if he’s okay with a mate who doesn’t want a knot. Don’t decide that for him.”

“Knotting’s not that big of a deal, anyway,” Chanyeol says. “Not really. You’re amazing, Jongin. Do yourself a favor and trust that Taemin will recognize that.”

“And if it doesn’t work out, you know we’re all still here,” Kyungsoo promises. 

Jongin is too busy crying to respond, so he lets Chanyeol pull him down into the furs. Kyungsoo lies along his front, so that Jongin is sandwiched between them. 

Kyungsoo presses gentle kisses against his lips until his sobs start to subside, and then Jongin can’t help but pull Kyungsoo closer. He basks in the familiar slow build of arousal as Chanyeol’s hands wander over his body, so different from the desperation he’d felt with Taemin. 

They all rock together slowly in a sloppy, uneven manner that results in absolutely no one getting off at the same time as anyone else, and they laugh at themselves more than once when two of them think they’re ready to be done just as a third gets hard again. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also a reminder for Jongin of how love really works—things don’t always go smoothly, but it’s not a struggle to for him to do what someone wants just to make them happy, if he cares about them. It’s always applied to his friends, and it should be the same with a mate.

When they’ve cleaned up after themselves and piled back together to sleep, Kyungsoo smiles at Jongin. “Don’t be a stranger just because you might’ve found a mate.”

 

In the morning, Kyungsoo sends Jongin off to find Taemin with one final admonishment not to get ahead of himself. “I know it’s cliché, but it really is best to take things one step at a time! You don’t need to commit to anything right this moment.”

Taemin is hovering around Kibum and the pack’s breakfast when Jongin finds him. Jongin is in such a state of anxiety over the conversation he needs to have that he almost doesn’t notice that Kibum appears to be in charge of breakfast preparations, but he has to hide a snort when he does finally notice. From what he’d experienced of Kibum and his cooking on the road back from the fair, their pack can expect some delicious breakfasts and some terrified breakfast helpers from now on.

As Jongin approaches, Kibum looks up and scowls. 

“You!” It’s clear from the ladle he’s pointing with that he means Jongin. “No breakfast for you until you have a talk with Taeminnie.”

That works for Jongin, given that he’s too nervous to eat anyway. He keeps the thought to himself, both because Taemin is right there and because he doesn’t know Kibum well enough to know how he responds to snark yet. Kibum seems about as scary as Kyungsoo, so Jongin has a feeling that the answer is, “Not well.”

Taemin is watching them quietly, and when Jongin nods his head toward the outskirts of their camp and shoots Taemin a questioning glance, he nods and follows Jongin.

Picking a spot that’s as far away from each of the sentry posts as they can get without leaving the camp’s ring of protection, Jongin sits down on a log in a clearing and waits for Taemin to follow suit.

“So,” Jongin starts, then hesitates.

“So,” Taemin repeats. He looks far too calm for this conversation, but then Taemin was often hard to read even as a child.

Gathering his nerves, Jongin spills out an apology for running off after their bath and then avoiding Taemin for the past week. He explains that he was scared, and that things had been moving too quickly. He promises that he’s not uninterested in Taemin, and he says he hopes that Taemin wasn’t offended.

When he gets to the end, Taemin’s face still isn’t giving much away. He’s still facing Jongin, but he’s pinching his lips between his teeth. 

“So,” he says, like it’s not the most recent thing he’s said, a moment or two after Jongin has stopped talking. “Can I ask- I mean, what are you looking for here? Oh, that sounded harsh. I mean like, it’s fine? I wasn’t offended, and I’m happy to go slower if you think you still want me at all. But Kibum told me we should clarify what it is we want from each other so that there’s no confusion.”

It’s probably good that he’s a little bit tongue-tied, because otherwise Jongin would be laughing at the realization that Taemin had also gone looking for advice in this matter. His own next words come out in a slow squeak.

“I think I might want you for a mate, if you’d have me,” Jongin says, but then he remembers Kyungsoo’s admonishment as he’d left the tent earlier that morning. “But I’m not asking you to claim me right now or anything! Kyungsoo said to take it one step at a time.”

With that out, the knot Jongin’s stomach eases up completely for the first time since the morning they’d started the journey back from the fair, and he starts to feel giddy out of relief. The corner of Taemin’s lips twitch, and then he’s breaking out into a radiant smile that dissolves into laughter. Jongin laughs as well, almost certain that they’re both laughing for the same reason. He collapses on top of Taemin’s shoulder as he falls into convulsions he’s certain are disproportionate to the actual humor of the situation.

After the last of their giggles has faded, Jongin gives Taemin a tiny, chaste kiss. Butterflies swirl in his stomach briefly, but they settle again politely when Taemin just smiles at him and edges closer on the log so that their sides are touching. He takes Jongin’s hand tentatively in his own and intertwines their fingers and asks, “Is this okay?”

Jongin smiles and pulls their joined hands into his lap in response.

“So, we’re courting with the possibility of mating, right?” Taemin asks. 

Jongin nods.

“And I’m guessing,” Taemin tenses again, briefly. “I mean, is it okay if I have sex with other people?”

Oh, right. “Yes. Same for me as well?”

Jongin can’t imagine his life without the intimacy of sex with the people he cares about, even if sex with Taemin turns out to be a hundred times better.

“From what I hear, I couldn’t stop you if I wanted to,” Taemin says wryly. “But I don’t want to.”

This could be the easiest segue he’s going to get for a long time, so Jongin forces out his last major concern in an embarrassing rush. “Speaking of sex, though, I’m not sure I’ll ever want to be knotted. So you should…think about that, maybe.”

“Oh,” Taemin blinks. “That’s okay? I’ve gone like two years without knotting anyone. I don’t really miss it that much.”

“Oh.” Jongin hadn’t even thought of that, but now it seems silly that it hadn’t occurred to him to think about Taemin’s sex life at all. “Have you had sex with anyone without knotting them, though?”

Taemin’s jaw drops in mock-horror, and he smacks Jongin playfully on the shoulder. “Jongin! Surely you don’t think I was celibate for _two whole years_ , do you?”

“What, I don’t know these things!” Now Jongin has to ask. “Who, though?”

“Mostly Jonghyun and Minho, who else?” Taemin says. Quirking an eyebrow, he leans into Jongin and takes a dramatic sniff. “But if we’re going to kiss and tell, how hard is it to get into Kyungsoo’s furs?”

Jongin snorts, sparing a thought for Chanyeol and the years of effort it took him. “Very, very hard. Especially for an alpha. Though it might be easier if…”

“If?” Taemin prompts when Jongin trails off thoughtfully.

“If you’d, say, in the past let someone top you and enjoyed it. And you happened to mention that around Kyungsoo.”

It takes Taemin a moment to connect the dots, and then his eyebrows nearly shoot off his forehead.

Feeling that he should clarify before he accidentally makes Kyungsoo’s life difficult, Jongin adds, “But I’ve never seen him pair off with anyone he’s not already really close with, and he likes having time to himself. It’s better to let him approach you if he wants to.”

“I see,” Taemin says.

Eventually their stomachs get too loud to ignore, and they go back to camp to beg their breakfasts from Kibum.

 

Despite their clarifications regarding sex with other people, Jongin and Taemin are nearly inseparable for the next two weeks. They don’t go any further than kissing, but Taemin ends up sleeping in Jongin’s tent every night. It’s probably a record for the most nights Jongin has slept in his own tent in a row since he received the tent when he came of age, but it feels a lot more like home with Taemin in it than it ever has before. 

Eventually Chanyeol interrupts them after dinner one night to protest Taemin’s monopolization of his friend’s time by hauling Jongin bodily over his shoulder and marching off with him, to the pack’s laughter. He lets Jongin down after a few steps, when Jongin protests that he’d rather not end up injured when Chanyeol inevitably trips and drops him.

As they leave for Chanyeol’s tent (because Jongin really does need to spend more time with his friends) Jongin spares a last longing glance at Taemin and notes that Kyungsoo is moving to fill the space beside Taemin left open by Jongin’s rudely forced departure. Sehun gets up from his own spot between Junmyeon and Zitao to trail behind Chanyeol and Jongin.

The moment Jongin sits down on one of Chanyeol’s cushions, he’s beset with crossed arms and raised eyebrows from Chanyeol and Sehun.

“So?” Sehun asks.

“So what?” The best option to avoid answering a question is always to play dumb.

“ _Sooo_ ,” Sehun drawls. “Are you ready to bare your neck and beg Taemin to claim you for his mate? Because you sure have been acting like it.”

Scratch that, the best option is always a pillow in the face of your adversary. It’s a tactic Sehun knows too well, however, because he manages to catch the pillow Jongin attempts to use to swat him and shoves it back in Jongin’s face instead.

When he lets up, Jongin whines. “It’s only been two weeks! How should I know?”

“But do you like him?” Chanyeol asks.

“Yes!” 

“How’s the sex?” 

Every moment of the last few weeks is completely worth it if only for the dumbfounded looks on Sehun and Chanyeol’s faces when Jongin says that there hasn’t been any.

Chanyeol places a hand on Jongin’s forehead. “Hmm, you don’t seem feverish.”

“Does he not like betas or something?” Sehun asks.

“No! We’re just taking it slow,” Jongin says. He glares at Chanyeol, “And you knew that.”

“Yeah, okay, but slow for you is everyone else’s fast when it comes to getting into bed with someone.” The grin drops from Chanyeol’s face. “Seriously, though, how is it going? Is he treating you well?”

Jongin can’t help but smile at the honest concern. “Very well. He’s really sweet, and he’s being really patient about the sex thing.”

Sehun mimes gagging, but he and Chanyeol both seem relieved. “So I’m guessing you’re hoping Kris will claim him for the pack next week?”

Jongin had almost forgotten about the rule that potential new pack members must decide whether to stay with the pack within a month, whereupon the pack alpha will decide whether to accept their membership. They’re coming up on time for Taemin and his friends to decide. Even though there’s only one answer Jongin really expects from either side, it makes him nervous to think about it. He nods mutely in response to Chanyeol’s question.

Seeming to regret making Jongin think about unhappy things, Chanyeol follows up with a lighthearted, “So wait, you’ve gone two weeks without sex? Do you want some help with that?”

In response—because he very, very much would like some help with that—Jongin crawls into Chanyeol’s lap and kisses him. As Sehun closes in on one side, Jongin can’t help but notice that he can smell Junmyeon all over Sehun and a milder hint of Baekhyun on Chanyeol. It’s soothing to think that so many people in their pack have room to love him the way he needs even while they love other people as well.

In the morning, Kyungsoo drops into Chanyeol’s tent smelling of Taemin before the three people already there have dragged themselves out of bed. He curls up on Jongin and says, “He’s really nice. I approve.” 

Curious, Jongin sniffs Kyungsoo until he gets a smack on the shoulder, “No sex, stupid! We just slept. I felt bad for him after Chanyeol took you away.”

_Oh, sure you felt bad for him_ , Jongin thinks, but he’s not stupid enough to say it when he’d rather enjoy the solid warmth of Kyungsoo lying on top of him for a while longer.

When he asks that night if Taemin is planning to stay with the pack, Taemin says yes. Then he laughs at Jongin, whose immediate response to hearing the word is to cling to Taemin like a limpet. He totally doesn’t cry, although Taemin will tell people otherwise for years to come.

 

Given that Taemin hasn’t allowed himself to be claimed by another pack and left their own when he was still very young, it’s unsurprising when Kris accepts his petition to join the pack quickly. His claiming is set to be done in the traditional ceremony, in the privacy of a tent of his own to be gifted to him the day of the claiming.

The four other returnees are a different matter, and the situation is complicated by the fact that Kris wasn’t around for the dispute that caused their departure. Fortunately, between Junmyeon and Minseok vouching for them, the dwindling number of pack members who agreed with the old pack alpha, and (presumably) Kibum’s excellent breakfasts, Kris doesn’t need much convincing.

Still, tradition dictates that the claiming of wolves already claimed by another pack happen in public with witnesses, so their claiming happens on the day of the decision. 

The four men are guided to kneel, and Junmyeon and Chanyeol flank Minho while Minseok keeps watch over the other three. Even a willing wolf often reacts violently to having a claim superseded, so Junmyeon and Chanyeol take an arm of Minho’s each and hold him still while Kris places his teeth over the mark from his former pack. 

Minho lets loose a blood curdling howl and nearly breaks free from Chanyeol’s grasp as Kris’s teeth sink in, but the fight goes out of him when Kris finishes the bite and retreats. 

Jonghyun is easier, and the two omegas hardly struggle. 

Standing next to Taemin, Jongin’s vision starts to blur with tears when he thinks about these five wolves choosing to commit their lives to this pack after having such a bad experience with the pack they’d initially joined. He wouldn’t say it out loud to anyone, but he’s proud that his family has just gotten larger. 

A cheer goes up when the last of the four is officially claimed, and then there’s a large lunch to celebrate.

 

In the morning, Jongin helps put the finishing touches on the tent that will belong to Taemin. 

The ceremony itself is as brief and anticlimactic as he remembers it being when he went through it himself, but this time Jongin finds himself overcome with emotion. When Kris leaves the tent, he ducks inside. 

Taemin is sitting up on the furs, hand holding a rag to his neck to staunch the bleeding from the open wound of his new pack mark. Kneeling in front of him, Jongin gently takes the hand holding the rag in his own and guides it away, nudging Taemin's shoulder to get him to lie down in the process.

Taemin obeys, but when Jongin goes to lick the wound on his neck, his body goes rigid with reluctance to allow the vulnerability of another werewolf’s mouth on his neck. One hand comes up to push Jongin away.

“Ugh, sorry,” Taemin says, retracting his hand sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Hoping to soothe Taemin's alpha instincts, Jongin presses little kisses to Taemin's jawline in a gesture of submission before he tries again. It seems to work, because this time when he goes to lick the wound, Taemin relaxes into it. His arms wrap around Jongin's waist, pulling his clothed chest against Taemin's own. 

The metallic taste of Taemin's blood fills Jongin's mouth. Taemin mutters Jongin's name while he laps, and it's enough to make tears prick Jongin’s eyes again.

Taemin is theirs now, officially. Even though it's only been a month since his return, and even though his decision had been a foregone conclusion from the start, Jongin is still gratified that Taemin seems well on his way to loving the pack as much as Jongin does. The knowledge that the people he loves can all love each other is both a joy and a relief to Jongin.

Once the wound is good and clean, Taemin drags Jongin's head up to kiss him on the mouth. The urge to cry fades as Taemin’s tongue explores Jongin’s mouth, replaced instead with frantic desire. Taemin’s hand quests down Jongin’s side, only to stop at his hip, fingering the skin under his waistband but failing to move farther. Jongin attempts to signal his eagerness for the hand to continue its trajectory by pressing his body more firmly against Taemin’s, but all that succeeds in doing is making Taemin moan.

Figuring that he’s going to have to be explicit after making such a big deal about wanting to take things slowly barely three weeks earlier, Jongin frees up a hand to grab Taemin’s and guide it to his ass even as he pulls back to say, “Taemin, fuck me.”

Hot puffs of air brush against his lips as Taemin breathes heavily into the space between them. His eyes are wide, locked onto Jongin’s as he gives Jongin’s ass a little squeeze. “Are you sure?”

In answer, Jongin swings one leg over Taemin’s body so that he’s straddling Taemin’s hips and kisses him again, letting most of his weight rest on top of Taemin. With a groan, Taemin hooks his arms around Jongin’s back and flips them over. 

Wrapping his arms around Taemin’s shoulders, Jongin pulls Taemin closer to him as Taemin worries a spot under his jaw with lips and teeth. The smell of Taemin’s alpha musk surrounding him makes it hard for Jongin to think.

“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that?” Taemin asks.

Despite the fog permeating his brain, Jongin can’t resist teasing, “What, that I want you to fuck me? Did you want me to beg, too?”

“Do you want me to make you?” Taemin asks in something close to a growl. He trails a hand down the front of Jongin’s pants to trace lightly over Jongin’s dick.

Jongin gasps and arches into the touch. Even though it’s scrawny Taemin, who’s smaller than Jongin and hardly anyone’s idea of an exemplary alpha, Jongin can imagine him making Jongin beg, and he can imagine loving every minute of it. He wants Taemin inside him right now, filling him up with a knot. He wants to submit.

It’s not a normal thought for him, but it’s one he knows he’s been deliberately holding back since he felt it with Junmyeon that night after he found Taemin at the fair. Somewhere in the part of his head that isn’t occupied with arousal, Jongin thinks that maybe his major problem with Taemin hasn’t really been about feeling deficient for being a beta as much as it’s been about worrying that he’ll be pigeonholed as an omega by his confused packmates when he’s really not one. 

But he’s a beta, and if he doesn’t have any role models for what that means, he’ll just have to decide for himself. It’s not like many of his friends really fit their stereotyped pack roles, anyway. And if Kyungsoo can admit what he wants long enough to be seen with Chanyeol, Jongin reasons, then Jongin can consider choosing an alpha for a mate without worrying about how the action will be misinterpreted.

So fuck it, he thinks. He grinds up against Taemin, moves his arms out of the way when Taemin wants to take off his shirt, then whines shamelessly when Taemin’s lips shift their focus from his neck to his collarbone. He gets one arm back over Taemin’s shoulders and the other into Taemin’s hair and holds on for dear life, shuddering as Taemin finds a nipple with one thumb and rubs little circles over it. 

Taemin follows the thumb with his mouth, so that he’s applying wet heat to Jongin’s nipple, and Jongin moans again. He lifts his hips to let Taemin strip off his pants and underwear. Taemin tosses the clothing unceremoniously aside and proceeds to give his palm a long, slow lick, holding Jongin’s eyes in a heavy gaze as he does. 

The hand goes down to wrap around Jongin’s cock, pulling him to hardness in a matter of a few quick jerks before Taemin follows it with his mouth. Jongin moans in anticipation as Taemin’s lips start to press against the tip of his cock, only to have Taemin to pull away after a brief kiss and smirk at him.

“Ass,” Jongin says, twining both hands in Taemin’s hair and shoving his head down lightly.

This time, Taemin wraps his lips around the head and sucks lightly before pulling off and lapping at the underside with his tongue. Jongin’s head hits the pillows as he jerks in response, and he closes his eyes to revel in the sensation. 

He’s wrapped up enough in the feeling of Taemin’s mouth moving to swallow his cock properly that he doesn’t notice when Taemin reaches for a jar of lubricant. It’s only when Taemin’s mouth moves away that he looks up, and then mostly to whine in protest.

“When you said you wanted me to fuck you-“ Taemin starts to ask, waving the jar as he speaks, but Jongin interrupts before he can finish the question.

“Your cock, my ass,” Jongin clarifies. He doesn’t bring up that he wants Taemin to knot him, yet, in case he changes his mind.

Taemin’s more tentative with his preparations than Jongin’s recent partners, and he’s definitely not as talented as Chanyeol at working Jongin up with his fingers. With as much as Jongin’s body is aching for him, though, they feel like magic. Taemin puts his mouth back on Jongin’s cock while he works, and it’s overwhelming to the point that Jongin has to beg him to lay off with his tongue when he finds Jongin’s prostate with his fingers, lest Jongin end up done long before Taemin’s last orgasm.

Kneeling up and over him, Taemin finds Jongin’s mouth with his own just as he adds a third finger, sharing with Jongin the salty taste of his own precome. Jongin whimpers and anchors Taemin’s head where it is with hands at the nape of his neck, bucking his hips down to meet Taemin’s fingers. 

They have to break apart for Taemin to slide into him, with the height difference making it too awkward to try to keep kissing while Jongin wraps his legs around Taemin’s hips and Taemin lines his cock up with Jongin’s ass. 

He’s prepared so thoroughly at this point that there’s hardly any burn at all as Taemin’s cock fills him up, just a pleasant, slick stretch. Jongin grabs fistfuls of the furs beneath him and begs Taemin to _fuck me already, damn it,_ when Taemin seems to hesitate. Taemin responds by pressing Jongin’s thighs toward his own body so that he’s almost folded in half and driving into him harshly.

Jongin wails embarrassingly loudly. He manages to quiet himself for the next thrust, but on the third Taemin finds his prostate and a squeak makes it through Jongin’s throat as his back arches.

“Let it out,” Taemin tells him, then, punctuating his order with another thrust against his prostate. “Let the whole pack know how much you’re enjoying my cock.”

Taemin being commanding shouldn’t really be hot, but there it is. It would be hard for Jongin to do anything but comply, and little yelps escape his lips with every thrust that hits the mark when there happens to be air in his lungs for him to yelp with. Taemin is far better with his hips than he is with his fingers, and he keeps his rhythm amazingly well. Flustered, Jongin lifts his arms and anchors his hands in the pillow under his head to relieve some of the tension overwhelming him.

He only turns into more of a frantic mess when he starts to notice Taemin’s knot feeling fuller when it brushes his rim with each thrust. Taemin sneaks a hand between them to wrap around Jongin’s cock, but Jongin pulls it away. 

“I want you to knot me,” he says. It’ll have to happen soon if it’s going to happen at all, and he’d prefer to be hard when it happens.

Taemin’s eyes widen. “Are you sure?”

Holding his gaze, Jongin nods. He’s as sure as he can be, but nerves still flutter in his stomach with apprehension. Taemin whines, then, and his hips lose their rhythm briefly. He waits for his knot to rise a bit more before he pushes it in, thankfully not needing to be told not to try teasing Jongin’s rim by dragging it in and out while it’s still small enough to do so, the way a lot of the omegas like it. 

It’s still small enough when Taemin eases it into Jongin that it’s only a bit of extra burn, but it swells with each careful circle of Taemin’s hips until Jongin feels ready to burst. His whole world focuses in on Taemin and his knot and his scent, and it’s all overwhelming again in the best way possible. He’s faintly aware that he’s moaning Taemin’s name too loudly and too often, but he feels too good to care. As he feels the first warm pulse of Taemin’s come inside of him, he shudders out his own orgasm. 

“Are you okay?” Taemin asks several moments later, while they both pant to get their breath back. Words are still far from Jongin’s mind, so he nods in response, thinking that the semen all over his stomach should really answer that question.

Taemin grins at that. Reaching for one of Jongin’s hands, he guides it up and intertwines it with his own before kissing each of Jongin’s knuckles in turn. Jongin smiles and lifts one of his fingers to press lightly at Taemin’s lips in response, a kind of reverse kiss.

As he comes down from the initial euphoria, Jongin notices that their position is starting to make his back uncomfortable. In an effort to relieve some of the discomfort, he gently shifts his legs down from Taemin’s shoulders only to find that Taemin’s still-swollen knot brushes against his prostate in the most amazing way as he does. 

In an effort to chase the feeling, Jongin digs his toes into the furs and arches his back to circle his ass on Taemin’s knot. The burst of pleasure that results is almost uncomfortable so soon after his first orgasm, but Jongin circles his hips again anyway, seeking more of it. 

Above him, Taemin whines and gasps out a, “Holy fuck, Jongin.”

He hunches forward, so that he’s pressing Jongin’s hand almost painfully into the furs, but he doesn’t attempt to take control of the situation. Jongin continues to circle his hips in a slow, controlled motion and is rewarded with a seemingly endless string of little whimpers from Taemin. He’s as turned on by the way Taemin falls apart over him as he is by the perfect pressure of the knot against his insides, and he keeps rocking through his own orgasm so that he can drink up Taemin’s moans until Taemin spills inside of him again. 

This time he lets his back sag against the floor and Taemin’s lap while he comes down. Taemin laughs an incredulous laugh as he straightens and massages Jongin’s sides.

“You’re perfect, you know that?” he says.

“Yes,” Jongin pants. His muscles will be killing him tomorrow, but he won’t regret it. 

After a long quiet moment, Taemin bends down and wraps his arms around Jongin’s back. “Come up with me?” He asks.

With a grunt, Jongin pulls himself up as Taemin tugs, so that he ends up somewhere between sitting in and kneeling across Taemin’s lap. Resting his arms over Taemin’s shoulders, he lets them take some of his weight to relieve a bit of pressure from his back and legs.

Taemin grins up at him. “I knew you’d be flexible enough for this.”

Jongin smirks, but it almost immediately changes to a grimace when he realizes a problem. “I’ll leak your come all over the place if you want to fuck like this.”

There’s more semen up his ass than he’s ever had before, barring that one time with Chanyeol, which involved only ginger movement once Chanyeol realized that Jongin was in pain, and Taemin’s knot will start to shrink soon (unless he’s some kind of mutant alpha who needs more than two or three orgasms for his knot to shrink, which is a scary thought even in Jongin’s current state of bliss).

“We’ve got a few minutes,” is Taemin’s simple response. He squeezes Jongin’s ass with his hands and grinds up into him, and Jongin doesn’t care enough to protest further. Grinding languidly along with Taemin’s motions, he’d almost rather explore the feeling of Taemin inside him without the interference of his own pleasure than orgasm again, but his arousal starts to build up again slowly even without any friction on his cock.

Then the first warm bit of Taemin’s come makes its way out of his ass and slides down his thigh, and he bucks involuntarily and whines, driven finally from half hard to fully hard. Taemin spills him onto his back and grinds harder, able to move a little more easily with his knot receding and Jongin still loose from it. 

Taemin’s final orgasm leaves him with little fanfare, just a small grunt and a matching small flush of warmth inside Jongin. A minute or two later he slides out, and a fair amount of come spills out of Jongin with him. Jongin finds himself torn between feeling oddly empty without Taemin’s cock inside him and very, very turned on by the mess. 

He makes to finish himself off with a hand around his cock, but Taemin bats it away to replace it with his own. Squirming down the furs, he wraps his mouth around the head of Jongin’s cock and sucks while he jerks the base with his hand. With his other hand, he traces fingers through the come leaking out of Jongin and then slips them inside of him, and Jongin loses his last shred of control.

He comes before he can voice a warning, accidentally bucking his hips up into Taemin’s mouth. Taemin chokes, getting a bit of Jongin’s come down his chin in the process, but he swallows what’s left in his mouth when he recovers.

When Taemin makes to wipe the mess off his chin, Jongin sits up to stop him. It earns him a slick reminder of why he was on his back in the first place, but what’s done is done. He leans forward to lick his own come off Taemin’s chin before kissing him, pulling him back down to the furs to reduce the mess they’re making.

“Fuck, I’m a mess,” he laughs when they eventually pull apart, taking in his own come on his stomach and feeling Taemin’s all over his thighs. Taemin has the nerve to look proud of himself, so Jongin pouts at him.

“What? You looked like you were enjoying it earlier,” Taemin protests, and he looks so adorably offended that Jongin has to kiss him.

The sun is still far from setting, but Jongin drapes himself over Taemin for a nap as soon as they’ve cleaned up as much as they can with a couple of towels. He drifts off feeling sated and exhausted and like he belongs exactly where he is right now, and his last thought is that maybe this is what Sehun has been wanting him to feel.

 

“Well, Taemin, I see you’re officially a member of the pack,” Sehun says, pointedly eyeing some hickeys on Jongin’s abdomen instead of the scabbed-over pack mark on Taemin’s neck. Jongin covers them self-consciously with a hand, even though he’d known full well what Taemin was doing at the start of their second round last night.

Taemin, on the other hand, just grins. It’s only when Jongin turns to scowl at him that he catches what Sehun is implying.

“Right,” he says sarcastically. “Meanwhile, you’ll know you’re pack leadership when Sehun starts going into heat the second he catches a whiff of you.”

But for all Sehun can be a snotty brat, Jongin is secretly relieved that he’s already comfortable enough with Taemin to speak so freely around him. Sehun and Taemin both have shy streaks, and Jongin has been worried that they’d just never start speaking to each other.

They’re on their way to get breakfast when Chanyeol slides neatly between Taemin and Jongin and stops Jongin with hands on his shoulders. 

“Are you okay?” He mouths, and Jongin’s not sure when he got subtle enough to not blurt it out for Taemin to overhear. It’s a silly, unnecessary gesture anyway—Jongin is perfectly capable of asking for help if he needs it.

Rolling his eyes, he nods. Then, feeling bad for his exasperation when Chanyeol’s excessive gestures are part of what makes him Chanyeol, Jongin wraps a hand around his neck and leans up to give him a quick thank you kiss.

It’s soft and sweet for a moment, and then Chanyeol nips Jongin’s lip in a way that Jongin would normally find sexy. Still worn out from the night before, Jongin can only groan in dismay and pull away.

That earns him a giant guffaw and a bear hug from Chanyeol. “You really let him wear you out.”

Shoving Jongin back towards Taemin, Chanyeol instructs them to eat lots of food; they’d missed dinner the night before, after all. 

They have to get in line for food, and when Jongin catches sight of Kibum, he thinks maybe he could have survived without breakfast. As they near the food, Kibum catches sight of them and does this completely terrifying thing with his eyebrows that Jongin can’t quite recognize. He holds his bowl out silently to receive his portion of the morning porridge, which Kibum ladles silently into his bowl while staring at a spot several inches to Jongin’s left. Taemin gets the same treatment.

“Sorry,” Taemin whispers as they walk away. “He’s kind of in denial about my sex life.”

 

After dinner that night, Jongin looks around the fire from where he’s sharing a log with Taemin to one side and Sehun sitting propped against his legs, with Zitao leaning against Sehun’s side in turn. Yixing has one arm around Jongdae’s shoulders and the other holding Baekhyun in his lap, and Baekhyun in turn has his legs sprawled across Chanyeol’s thighs, prodding his toes into Kyungsoo’s side on the other side of Chanyeol just to annoy him. The rest of the pack sits in similar knots around other fires, and Jongin can’t help but think that, while he feels completely at home with Taemin, he would never be home anywhere that didn’t include this warm, tangled mess of a pack. 

He props his head on top of Sehun’s and dozes off to the same mild, familiar scent he’s smelled almost every day of his life for many years, spiced though it is now with Junmyeon’s stronger scent, and when he wakes to an aching back and people teasing him for his strange napping positions, well, that smells like home, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I spent this whole stupid thing telling myself someone in this ‘verse has invented some kind of magic fur cleaner so that I wouldn’t have to figure out how sheets would work here, okay? This is what happens when I create an AU for PWP and then decide to write an actual story in it.


End file.
